Skywalker Syndrome

Well! It has been a while, much longer than I intended, since my last post. In order to keep some record of what I've been up, I'm going to try and sum up several thoughts that were going through my head from 30 November through 13 December; from there, I intend to write a couple more posts about more current happenings.



As I'm trying to discern where God is leading me "next" in terms of vocation, employment, and relationships, I want to know with absolute certainty the next step; it'd be ideal if the Heavens parted and God's hand wrote on the wall "Go ______, young man!" I'm looking at a couple different options, but I'm not sure about any of them; and, more than anything, I want to seek God's face and submit to His leading, rather than, as it were, submit my plans to Him for approval.

However, I want to know now! Like Luke Skywalker, I'm yelling "Of course I'm ready! Ben, tell him I'm ready!" - and then trying to stand up to do something, and hitting my head on the ceiling of Yoda's hovel, and being forced to sit back down.
Yoda replies, "Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away - to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was! [Pokes Luke] Hmm? What he was doing! Hmmph. [Pokes Luke] Adventure - hah! Excitement - hah! A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless!"

I've hit my head on the roof of God's provided shelter many times in the past. So now I'm trying to wait patiently for the Lord to lead me by my right hand, as the Word says in Isaiah 41:13:
'For I, the LORD your God,
hold your right hand'
(c.f. also Psalm 73:23)
I love that image: If I'm being led by my right hand, I am powerless to control where I'm going. God is in complete control - and I certainly can't wrench my hand away from His! Moreover, it implies that God is using His left hand to lead - He does not even need to exert the fulness of His power to lead me beside still waters. To make me lie down in green meadows. To restore my soul.

And the other thing that image implies - God is using His mighty right hand to prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies, to anoint my head with oil, and to make my cup run over.

I may not know where I'm going, but I do know where I am.
Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me
     all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
     forever.